Audio amplifiers tend to distort the audio signal when set at a high output level. Such distortion, apart from creating an unpleasant sound, can cause physical damage to the loudspeakers driven by the amplifier. It has therefore already been proposed to limit the degree of distortion by resorting to volume foldback, in other words the output volume of the audio amplifier is reduced as soon as a predetermined threshold of unacceptable distortion is exceeded.
The distortion threshold that resulted in steps being taken in the prior art to reduce the output volume of the audio amplifier was fixed. Because ideally there should be no distortion at all, it was at first attempted to set a zero level of distortion and any detected distortion resulted in the output level of the audio amplifier being reduced. Surprisingly, the resulting improvement in sound quality was not found universally acceptable because some listeners objected to the reduction in maximum output power. It was found that some listeners were of the opinion that an audio system is under performing if it does not produce distortion at maximum volume, and to meet their needs a certain degree of distortion was not only acceptable but desirable. As a result, a compromise threshold was adopted that allowed some degree of distortion at maximum volume while still reducing the risk of damage to the loudspeakers through clipping of their driving signal.
The disadvantage of such a system is that distortion is tolerated even at volume levels below the maximum and this results in the sound quality at such lower volumes being compromised unnecessarily.